Anticipating Beauty and Growth...

One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns, The Passing Show

The best place to seek God is in a garden. You can dig for him there. ~George Bernard Shaw

My garden is one of the areas where I express my creativity the most. I have a real garden. Weeds. Plants that don't do well. Plants that shouldn't have been planted because they take over. Kids and dogs tromping on newly sprouted blooms. Like the first quote says though, the anticipation of what the garden is going to look like is the best part for me. I almost always buy very small shrubs and plants because the waiting and watching is what makes it fun. I'm not interested in instant gratification when it comes to gardening.

I need to remember this in the rest of my life too. Planting a seed or small seedling is an act of faith. I put it in the dirt and I expect and hope that it's going to grow and produce a beautiful bloom or a tasty vegetable. Hasn't God done the same thing with me? He gave me gifts and He is waiting for me...watching to see what I'll do with them. It's up to me to carry out the plan He has for me. Like my garden...I'm real...flaws and all. I wonder...when He is waiting and watching me...is the anticipation of what I will become the best part for Him too?

On my bookshelf this week...my interests seem to be all things English lately...I'm thoroughly enjoying every minute I spend with Jane Austen and the anticipation of beginning to work in my garden is increasing every day. Cottage gardening. Simple. Informal. Beautiful.

...and the simplifying and de-cluttering continues. The too-large country table in our dining room has been replaced by a small table with clean lines. Simple.



Have a great weekend!

Jackie

Supermarket Flowers Make Me Happy...

As complicated as life gets sometimes I'm really just a simple girl and simplicity in my life is what I strive for.

Simple Joys Like...

A good book that I don't want to put down...

Sitting with a a cup of coffee and a magazine on my deck...

Planting seeds or plants and taking pleasure in watching them grow...

A simple home-cooked meal like roasted chicken and potatoes...

and...

...Supermarket Flowers...

If you read my blog you know that I buy flowers for myself when I grocery shop. I usually do this all winter and even in the summer when my garden is depleted of cut flowers. I'm planning a cutting garden so hopefully I'll have flowers all summer long this year.

I wanted to show you what I do with a $10 Mixed bouquet of flowers and a $5.00 bouquet of Carnations. I look for flowers that are long lasting and Carnations and Mums are the best.

If I buy a mixed bouquet I will usually split it into 2 or 3 vases. A good sized mixed bouquet costs $10.00 in my town but I can sometimes find them for $5.00. I never spend more than $10!

This week I wanted a large bouquet for my dining room table so I left most of the flowers in the bouquet. The light-pink Lilly's turned out beautiful and I could have taken them out and they would have looked really pretty on their own.



Out of the same bouquet I removed all the carnations and some of the mums and cut them short to make a small display in a square votive cup. Perfect for my little butcher block island in my kitchen.




...and my favorite way to display flowers...in a large-mouth canning jar. This $5.00 bouquet of Carnations looks like spring to me and this bouquet will last approximately 10 days!! The flowers are just now opening up and will be spilling over the side of the jar in a day or two.

Flowers are my winter treat to myself. We have to do nice things for ourselves sometimes and Moms don't do that enough!

Jackie

Slowing Down To View The Small Signs...

I took a stroll through downtown last week. As I walked, I slowed down my pace. I'm always in a hurry. Always somewhere to go and something to do. I intentionally slowed down. Purposefully. I needed to take it in.

The Sunlight.

I needed to take in the sunlight's pure radiance soaking into my skin. I hadn't seen it for awhile. It had hidden itself away for what seemed like months but was really only weeks and sometimes only days. But it hadn't shown itself enough in the past few months.

There was still a chill in the air but there was something different that day. The scent in the air wasn't the same as it had been the day before. What is it? I thought. What is different today? The scent was an earthy one. Damp and Earthy and Fresh. Fresh! A hint of what is coming.

I continued to walk admiring the way the light was bouncing off the storefront glass and reflecting on the pools of melting snow in the crevices of the sidewalk. Many of the folks I met were also slowing down their pace and taking it in too. Smiles. Carefree Laughs. Light jackets instead of heavy winter gear. A promise of what is coming.

The storefronts were starting to fill with the colors of yellow, pink, lavender, white. The garish reds and fuchsias from the Holiday of Love were gone now. As I passed a shop, the owner was sweeping the walk in front of her store. I slowed down. Her storefront was filled with with gardening gloves, vintage seed boxes, old white ironstone pieces and yellow printed aprons on painted white wire dress forms. Another hint of what is to come.

As I was rounding the corner back to my office. It went away. The radiance. The sun was hiding under the clouds again. The chill was back and the rain started to lightly fall. As I buttoned up my coat and pulled out my hat, I noticed the scent. The scent of the rain. It too was different. Fresh. Almost like a spring rain...but not quite. The rain smelled of a promise of what is to come.

The promise that the warmth of Spring will soon arrive.


**Photo Credits
1. Spring in Lafayette Square, St. Louis MO taken by Eyefetch Photography. Lafayette Square is one of my favorite spots in St. Louis.

2. The Governor's garden. Show-Me Missouri Plants and Flowers

Meal Planning Continued...

Thanks for all the great comments about my new adventure into monthly meal planning. I wanted to answer some of your questions. Mom, are you reading this? Can you believe I'm actually answering questions about how I grocery shop and the recipes I use? I've come a long way from what my attitude was about any type of home-making skill when I was in my teens and 20's. When I was a SAHM I discovered I actually liked being in the kitchen and I learned a few tricks along the way. I love gardening... so cooking just naturally goes along with that. So, here it is...all my kitchen wisdom...if you were here you'd hear me laughing now....


When I grocery shop
Most of the time I grocery shop every two weeks. On the off week, I run in and get juice, milk, fruit, bread or other necessities we need. This in between shopping trip doesn't amount to much maybe $20 or $30. I shop this way because I get paid every two weeks and I just like to get it over with. I don't enjoy grocery shopping at all. I also found that when I shop every two weeks I save a lot of money over going every week. Mainly because I'm only tempted to overspend twice a month instead of four times. I budget $150.00 for groceries every two weeks but I usually end up spending closer to $200 by the time I make the in between week run. It could be better I'm sure. Also, this is strictly for food items. Occasionally, a bouquet of flowers and a latte from Starbucks is thrown in there. Okay, EVERY TIME a bouquet of flowers (usually $5.00) is thrown in there, but that's my reward for dealing with the crowds, right? And looking at the flowers as I spend an hour putting away the groceries makes it so much better.


How I plan
When I plan, I literally sit down with a blank calendar and I usually start with our favorite meals that we have every month...tacos, brown sugar meat loaf, roasted whole chicken, etc.. Then I usually go to the Grocery Cart Challenge blog because she posts her meal plans every Monday for the week. I copy down the one's I like from her list and then I move on to the other websites or the magazines. The only thing that I really have to think about is how long it will take to prepare something and if it's a longer preparation time (like roasted chicken or meat loaf) I will usually fix that on a weekend. The rest of the meals are fairly quick.


Keys to sticking to the plan
For me, when I actually have a plan I don't have a lot of trouble sticking to it. Having the plan right on the refrigerator is the key. I also do quite of bit of preparation for the next night while I'm in the kitchen fixing the meal. For example, we'll have tacos tonight and while the ground beef is browning I will mix the meat loaf up for tomorrow. I get it all ready, put it in the baking dish and place it covered back in the frig and then tomorrow it's all ready to put in the oven. Tomorrow, when the meat loaf is in the oven and I'm preparing the side dishes I will be getting something ready for the next day if there is preparation needed. I don't know if it actually saves me time...but on the busy nights I love just grabbing something out of the frig and popping it in the oven with no preparation.


Some of the Recipes
The most requested meal in our home is Brown Sugar Meatloaf. It definitely gets served at least once per month. I wasn't a meat loaf eater until I discovered this recipe.

Home-made Mac and Cheese is also a favorite. It's the baked old-fashioned kind...the best! I use a couple of different recipes...but the Fanny Farmer recipe is the one I use the most.

Creamy Beef, Mushroom and Noodle Soup. I haven't actually made this yet. But it sounds delish!

For Homemade Pizza I use this New York Style Pizza Crust Recipe. I also use the bread machine for pizza crust a lot too.

About once a month I make Buttery Bread Machine Rolls or Country White Rolls and put them in the freezer. I take the number of rolls out that I want for the next nights dinner and let them rise in the refrigerator all night and the next day and they are usually ready to bake by the time I fix dinner. If not, I will take them out of the frig as soon as I get home and let them rise on top of the oven for the hour or so before dinner is ready.


What is Woodcrest?
Woodcrest is the church we go to. Every other Wednesday we will eat dinner there and there is no need to fix anything at home and that is always a good thing! These are the Wednesday's that I go to the new group I told you about here. I went to the first one this week and it was great. There was a lot of sharing and I will definitely know these people very well by the time we're finished in May. It's a diverse group of women in their 20's through their 70's and we're bound to learn a lot from each other. It will be good...and what a cool class it is...meditation, prayer, silence, journaling, sharing...totally my cup of tea.


Other Randomness...
Deidra said that they use e-Mealz. I neglected to tell you that e-Mealz is also one of my resources. I recently (in the last month) signed up with them and have been really pleased with the recipes too! I haven't seen the savings on my bill yet though...so I'm not sure I will continue it.

Besides grocery shopping, the rest of my weekend is filled with laundry, prep of my bedroom for painting, dinner with my husband to celebrate our 13th anniversary and a couple of kids activities.

I hope you have a great weekend.

Jackie



**for the record, that is not my clipboard and pencil holder on the frig...but isn't that a cute clipboard? It matches my new blogger theme so well too (grin).

Extreme Meal Planning...

I planned a whole month of meals for March 2010. Extreme? It is for me.

Meal planning and preparation is an area of my life that I can always improve in. By the time we get home from work and school and get settled in for the evening it is close to 5:00pm. If I don't have a plan in place for our meal that night then we usually end up hitting a drive-through, ordering a pizza or even head over to Outback for curbside takeaway... and that is expensive!

I'm pretty good at planning our meals a week at a time. Then there are those weeks that I'm too busy or forget to plan and it's on those weeks our budget falls apart...this happens more often than I'd like to admit.

On the good weeks I follow the plan and even do some preparation for the next nights meal while I'm in the kitchen. It works great on these weeks and I hope planning a month in advance will make every week go that well.

It usually takes me approximately an hour to plan a weeks worth of meals.

It took me an hour and a half to plan a months worth of meals. This fact alone is a great reason for me to do this every single month!

When you look at our menu plan you'll see that we eat regular food at our house...nothing fancy or complicated. I like the idea of having this meal calendar on our refrigerator at home so everyone knows what is on the menu every day.



I use a few resources when I'm planning meals...

What's For Dinner (a nice blog I just found)
The Grocery Cart Challenge
RecipeZaar (my favorite recipe site)
Woman's Day Month of Menus
I also subscribe to Taste of Home Magazine and get a lot of great ideas from there.


Next order of business is how to get our paper under control. The photo below is Kyler "playing with the Moon" as he calls it...he loves to get on Google Earth and play around. The not so great part of the photo is the basket of paper mess. Another area of improvement for sure!


I'd love to hear your meal planning tips and tricks...please share!

Jackie

Valentines Day Wisdom To Carry Through The Days...

Let everything you do be done in love (true love to God and man as inspired by God's love for us).

1 Corinthians 16:14 From the Amplified Bible

What better way to live my life than being intentional about my love for God and those around me. I can honestly say that I don't approach everything in my life this way and I can imagine the difference if I did. There is always work to be done isn't there? For that I'm thankful. I hope I never stop growing and learning in my faith.

I mentioned recently that I'm starting a new class at church. It's called Sacred Rhythms. It's based on a book by Ruth Haley Barton.


I'm excited about the class because it's based on the same spiritual practice that I've been enjoying in the Solo Devotional for the last year. The practice is called Lectio Divina or Divine Reading/Spiritual Reading. Basically, you study, ponder, listen and pray. This one practice has made all the difference for me in my relationship with God. However, this class is really out of my comfort zone. I love the idea of getting together with other people and discussing our faith, but for me to actually do it is something else altogether. I missed the first class because of my illness, so this Wednesday is the first one for me. This a big church. I got the list of my classmates last week and I don't know anyone. That's okay...but I'm stepping out of the zone a little. I'll let you know how it goes.






Hope you all had a wonderful Valentines Day.

Jackie

**photos - red tulips on my dining room table, strawberry cake with cherry frosting for Valentines day, Kobe enjoying a cupcake made from leftover batter.

Decorating Inspiration from the Big Screen...

Obviously I've been in some sort of nesting phase for the last couple of months because most of my posts have been about decorating lately. It continues today. Even this weekend my plan is to unload a lot of junk from my bedroom in order to prepare the room for a much simpler, cottage-like feeling. Painting commences next week.

As I watched You've Got Mail for the about the 25th time last week, I realized one of the reasons I love the movie so much is because of Meg Ryan's apartment and her quaint little bookstore. The story is sweet but I really like the look of almost all the sets. The feeling of her apartment is what I'm striving for in my house...I never quite get it...but I'm still trying. I love everything about her apartment. All the books. Old, chipped up decor and the mismatched fabrics. It's comfortable. I also love the movie this one is based on called The Shop Around The Corner. The decor isn't as charming...but the movie is worth watching.

Can't forget about the bookstore...

If you don't have kids you probably haven't watched Alvin and the Chipmunks...or maybe you have! The first thing I said when the scene opened up in Jason Lee's house was "I LOVE his house". Every time it's on I take mental notes about how it's decorated. Now I have some photos.


So, now there is a new movie that I haven't seen but several blogs have been buzzing about it and have featured photos from the movie...mainly the gardens. It's Complicated starring Meryl Streep. The movie looks really cute but I can't wait to see it because of these....


I'm a practical enough girl to know that most real gardens don't look anything like this....but a girl can dream, can't she?

I found photos of these movie sets all over the internet but the best collection is at Hooked On Houses. If you pay attention to the decor in movies like I do, chances are you'll find one of your favorites on her blog.

Have a great weekend and in between de-junking I plan to catch up on some of your blogs...I'll see you there.


Jackie

February Beauty!

Look at this sweetly stitched strawberry. I was the lucky winner of this little strawberry giveaway. I won this beauty from Sharlotte over at The Happy Needle. If you haven't visited her yet...head on over there! Her blog is full of inspiring stitched projects that she is working on. I love to see what she has stitched up every week. Right now, it's hanging on our Valentine Tree and it will go in the kitchen when the tree comes down. Thanks again, Sharlotte...I LOVE it!


Well, it's February and it's still cold, snowy and dreary in our part of the country. I'm still looking for beauty...

Sedums in the Snow...

Gardens and Spring Cupcakes...

Yellow Tulips are lovely in the kitchen in February...

...and White Tulips in the Dining Room...

Galvanized Metal Love...

A Hot Spot in the Snow...Part of my newly landscaped front yard...more on that in the spring...

Footsteps in the Snow...Heading to the Bird Feeders...

Take It To The Mattressess...

I bought a mattress this weekend. Online.

Weird? Maybe.

Before you decide...let me tell you about our history with mattresses...

When Pat and I landed together in our first apartment we had a roll-away bed. The roll-away bed was Pat's contribution to our hodge-podge of throw away furniture in our new apartment. Now, the roll-away bed was a step up for me because I had been sleeping on a camping cot for the previous year or two when I lived with my sister in our shared apartment in St. Louis...my big city adventure. (LOL!) At first glance, the roll-away bed didn't seem so bad considering what I had been sleeping on. However, a twin size roll-away bed for two people...not the best sleeping arrangement...

Pat and I pooled our money together and went to the mall in search of a bed. Guess where we ended up? It's 1989 folks...what do you think? The Waterbed store, of course. In 1989 you could buy a waterbed much cheaper than a regular mattress and box spring...or at least that's what our 5 minutes of research netted us. We bought a waterbed. The bottom-of-the-line waterbed for $100. No baffles. No padding around the wooden frame. Just a big piece of plastic filled with water. We were 21 years old and this sounded okay until you would roll yourself onto the bed trying not to scrape your leg on the frame and then when you get on the bed you sink and hit the bottom (no baffles, remember?). Again...not the best sleeping experience.

I don't know how long we had that water-bed. I don't think we even had it for a year before we decided we needed to actually get some sleep and that we needed a real mattress. So, we head out to the surplus furniture store that was having a Truck Load Mattress Sale. That was the best $200 I spent of my student loan money that month (yeah, I was making some great decisions). Truth was, it was a huge step up from the water-bed. In fact, we still have that mattress in our spare bedroom.

Then, a few years later, Pat's Mom was getting a new mattress for her bed and we inherited a higher-end Orthopedic mattress from her. It was great. Free! It lasted several years until the springs started poking us in the sides. That mattress survived two pregnancies. It's no wonder the springs started poking.

Finally...about a year ago...Pat saw an ad at a local furniture store downtown that was having a HUGE mattress sale. He consulted me for about 5 minutes and then said, "I'm going to get it". I shrugged my shoulders and thought "whatever...surely any mattress he gets can't be much worse than what we have now".

WRONG!!

He pulls into the driveway and comes in to ask for my help in bringing it in. As he's unloading this thing the first thing I see is a wooden frame with springs...kind of like what a box spring foundation looks like. I say, "Did you get a box spring foundation instead of a mattress?". As it turns out it actually was a mattress. So, you can just imagine the comfort level here! Pat has stuck out the mattress since last spring...with a lot of complaining...I might add! I've spent nights on the couch, spare bedroom, kids beds and the recliner.

One thing I do well when I'm too sick to do anything else or when I'm having insomnia is SHOP online! So, we now have a queen size Memory Foam mattress on it's way to our house. No Springs! Anything is better than what we have, right? Uh-oh...where have I heard that before?

Sweet Dreams!
Jackie


P.S. regarding the blog title...just had to get in a little plug for a couple of my favorite movies...The Godfather and You've Got Mail.

Wearing Thin...

...my nerves...my emotions...

Going on 3 weeks of pneumonia is wearing on me. Throw in two boys who had a stomach virus and now both of those same boys have colds. It feels like it's never ending. I hope every day I'm going to wake up and feel like myself again and I don't. However, I'm sitting here typing up this blog post and feeling a little better tonight so I'm hopeful...

...hopeful I feel well enough to tackle the laundry and do some cleaning in my house and go to work next week and be productive instead of sitting at my desk trying not to cry because I just want to go home and sleep.

...hopeful I can have enough energy to spend time with the boys and not glaze over as they are telling me things that are happening.

I know I'm going to get better and this isn't forever...but in these cold and gray days it's hard to see that sometimes.

I feel sort of ashamed of these feelings when I found out this week that my former boss, Phil, just had a massive stroke and may not ever recover fully. He is a talented musician, writer and artist.

We never know what is around the next bend, do we?

Comments are closed on this one...just needed to get it out...

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
-- Helen Keller

Springtime Dreaming...

Since I'm dreaming of spring and summer right now I thought I'd share a post I did last June of a little tour through my garden. When I look outside at my gardens right now...they don't look so great. It helps me to look at how nice they were when they are in bloom. I always see things I want to change though. I have plans this year for a new cutting garden and I want to finish Lucky's Garden (a peaceful little place dedicated to our dog Lucky who died in 2006).

A Stroll Through Jackie's Garden - June 2009.

Enjoy!

Are you planning your gardens yet?

Jackie

Simple Woman's Daybook - February 1, 2010

I thought this would be fun to do every so often...

FOR TODAY . . . Monday, February 1st

Outside my window . . . Cloudy and Gray! Cold!

I am thinking . . . about all the work I have to do in the office since I missed almost the whole week last week.

I am thankful for . . .good health...since it's been a rare commodity in our home the last couple of weeks.

I am wearing . . . Jeans, Jean Jacket and Purple top...and my new scrabble tile necklace I purchased from etsy.

I am creating...action plans for all the events coming up at work this semester.

I am remembering. . . if you have your health, you have everything.

I am going . . . to the dentist and then to work for the day.

I am reading . . . Healing Sands by Nancy Rue and Dr. Stephen Arterburn

I am hoping . . . Kobe is feeling much better by the time I return home from work today.

I am hearing...Nothing...absolute quiet!!

On my mind . . .I need to balance my checkbook, pay bills, tackle my desk at work, organize my tasks at work, tackle the laundry when I get home and when am I going to get to the grocery store? Also, I have to work on my class tonight!

Noticing that . . . I'm tense thinking about everything that needs to be done this week and I'd rather be cross-stitching.

Pondering these words . . .the truest thing about me is is not my identity as a wife, mom, employee, etc. but my desire for God and my capacity to reach for more of God than I have right now is the deepest essence of who I am.

From the kitchen . . .maple brown sugar pork chops tonight.

What are we doing this week . . . trying to get back to normal. Also, I'm attending a new group at church this week called Sacred Rhythms...hence the pondering above (grin).

Here is a picture I'm sharing...One of the scrabble tile pendants I purchased...



If you'd like to join in...click HERE to go to The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Jackie